any young man to acquire a very general knowledge of men and things. A judicious economy of that time, for one year, would afford you opportunity to read a great many useful volumes, and to treasure up much useful knowledge. The means of intellectual improvement were never more abundant or accessible to all classes of persons, than at the present day; and I may add, never were there stronger inducements for young men to avail themselves of those means, and to aim at high attainments in knowledge. Society is rapidly advancing in general improvement; the field of enterprise is fast widening, and useful talents of every kind find ample scope for employment. And permit me to remind you, my friends, that, in respect to mental improvement, the present is the most important period of your life. It is, indeed, the only period in which you can enter upon such a course of improvement, with any hope of success. If from the age of fifteen to twentyfive, a young man neglects the cultivation of his mind, he will probably neglect it till the end of life. If during that period he does not form a habit of reading, of observation and reflection, he will never form such a habit; but go through the world, as the dull ass goes to market, none the wiser for all the wonders that are spread around him.

I am the more anxious to impress this subject on your minds, because I consider your usefulness, your present and future happiness, as most intimately connected with it. A young man who has a fondness for books, or a taste for the works of nature and art, is not only preparing to appear with honour and usefulness as a member of society, but is secure from a thousand temptations and evils to which he would otherwise be exposed. He knows what to do with his leisure time. It does not hang heavily on his hands. He has no inducement to resort to bad company, or the haunts of dissipation and vice; he has higher and nobler sources of enjoyment in himself. At pleasure, he can call around him the best of company,-the wisest and greatest men of every age and country—and feast his mind with the rich stores of knowledge, which they spread before him. A lover of good books can never be in want of good society, nor in much danger of seeking enjoyment in the low pleasures of sensuality and vice.

3. Another thing demanded of you by society, is an upright and virtuous character. If a young man is loose in his principles and habits; if he lives without plan and without object, spending his time in idleness and pleasure, there is more hope of a fool than of him. He is sure to become a worthless character, and a pernicious member of society. He forgets his high destination as a rational, immortal being; he degrades himself to a level with the brute; and is not only disqualified for all the serious duties of life, but proves himself a nuisance and a curse to all with whom he is connected.

Every unprincipled, wicked man, is an enemy of society. And a virtuous community knows how to punish such characters. They are not respected; they are not patronized: confidence and support are withheld from them; and they are left, neglected and despised, to float down with the common herd to perdition.

No young man can hope to rise in society, or act worthily his part in life, without a fair, moral character. The basis of such a character, is virtuous principle; or a deep, fixed sense of moral obligation, sustained and invigorated by the fear and the love of God. The man who possesses such a character can be trusted. Integrity, truth, benevolence, justice, are not with him words without meaning; he knows and he feels their sacred import, and aims, in the whole tenor of his life, to exemplify the virtues they express. Such a man has decision of character;-he knows what is right, and is firm in doing it. Such a man has independance of character; he thinks and acts for himself, and is not to be made a tool of to serve the purposes of party. Such a man has consistency of character;-he pursues a straight forward course, and what he is to-day, you are sure of finding him to-morrow. Such a man has true worth of character;-and his life is a blessing to himself, to his family, to society, and to the world.

Aim then, my friends, to attain this character,-aim at virtue and moral excellence. This is the first, the indispensable qualification of a good citizen. It imparts life, and strength, and beauty, not only to individual character, but to all the institutions and interests of society. It is indeed the dew and the rain that nourish the vine and the fig-tree, by which we are shaded and refreshed.

TRAVELS IN PALESTINE.

BY E. ROBINSON, D.D., PROFESSOR, THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK.

[Continued from page 207.]

JERUSALEM.

The feelings of the christian traveller on approaching Jerusalem for the first time, can be better conceived, than described. Mine were strongly excited. Before us, as we approached, lay Zion, the Mount of Olives, the vales of Hinnom and Jehosaphat, and other objects of the deepest interest. I beheld them now with my own eyes; they all seemed familiar to me, as if the realization of a former dream; and it was almost a painful interruption, when my companion, with the kindest motives, began to point out and name the different objects in view. Our journey to Palestine was now complete; and our researches and travels in Palestine were to begin. In respect to these we adopted for our future guidance the two following principles, viz.-To direct our researches chiefly to those parts of the country, which former travellers had never visited; and to obtain information, as far as possible, not from the legends of monks and other foreigners, but directly from the native Arabs of the land.

In approaching Jerusalem from Hebron, I was struck with the very rapid descent of the valley of Hinnom, and the great depth of the vale of Jehosaphat, into which the former opens. In the city itself, I was prepared, from the descriptions of most travellers, to find the houses miserable, the streets filthy, and the population squalid. But in all these respects I was agreeably disappointed. The houses are better built, and the streets cleaner, than those of Alexandria, Smyrna, or Constantinople. The hills and vallies which marked the different quarters of the ancient city, are still distinctly visible. The valley of the Tyropoeum may be traced from its head, near the Yaffa gate, to its foot at the pool of Siloam. The hills of Zion, Akra, Bezetha, and Moriah are yet distinct and marked. The latter, on which stood the ancient temple, is now occupied by the mosque of Omar, and the extensive court or area around it.

One of the earliest objects of our attention was naturally this area, in reference to its antiquity and connexion with the ancient temple. It is an elevated plateau or terrace, nearly in the form of a parallelogram, supported by and within massive walls built up from the valleys or lower ground on all sides. The southern wall is about sixty feet high. The upper part of these external walls, is obviously of modern origin; but it is also not less easy to perceive, that the lower portions, for the most part, are of an earlier date. These are composed, generally, of very large stones, many of them twenty feet and more in length, by five or six feet thick, hewn in a peculiar manner. At the first view of these walls I was led to the conviction, that these lower portions had belonged to the ancient temple, and were to be referred back, at least, to the time of Herod, if not to the days of Nehemiah or Solomon. This conviction was afterwards strengthened, by our discovering, near the south-west corner, in the western wall, the remains, or rather the foot of an immense arch, springing out from the wall in the direction towards Mount Zion, across the valley of the Tyropoeum. The traces of this arch are too distinct and definite to be mistaken; and it can only have belonged to the bridge, which, according to Josephus, led from this part of the temple area to the Xystus on Mount Zion; thus proving incontestably the antiquity of that portion of the wall from which it springs.

We then examined the remarkable tower in the citadel near the Yaffa gate, which even to the unpractised eye bears strong marks of antiquity. Former travellers have already regarded this as the Hippicus of Herod; and we found every reason to assent to this conclusion. So far as we could discover, the lower part of the tower is wholly solid, as described by Josephus; at least there is no known or visible entrance to it, either from above or below.

The present walls of the city were built about 300 years ago; as appears from numerous Arabic inscriptions. Remains of the former wall, which probably existed in the time of the crusades, are still visible on the outside, north-west of the Yaffa gate; also on the north side of the city, and in the interior of the north-west corner. Of the ancient wall around Zion, traces may yet be seen for some distance in

the scarped rocks below the south-west brow of Zion. On the high ground, north of the north-west corner of the city, we discovered evident traces of what must have been the third or exterior wall described by Josephus in this quarter, erected after the time of Christ. Here must have stood the tower Psephinos; and from this point we were able to trace the foundation of the same ancient wall for a considerable distance further in a north-east direction.

Of the second wall of Josephus, which at the time of the crucifixion was the exterior wall of the city on this side, we could find no remaining traces; unless it be two square ancient towers, which we discovered connected with the wall, inside the gate of Damascus, one on each side of the gate. These towers are built up of large stones precisely like those mentioned above, as belonging to the ancient temple-walls. They have been much injured in building the modern wall of the city; but are evidently ancient, and apparently older than Hippicus. They were, most probably, the guard-houses of an ancient gate upon this spot; and this could well only have belonged to the said second wall. If this hypothesis be correct, it will go far to decide the question, as to the site of the church of the Holy Sepulchre ; which must then have fallen within this wall, and so within the ancient city. Indeed the church stands upon the very ridge of the hill Akra, which, according to Josephus, and to every probability, must have formed part of the lower city, and been enclosed within the second wall.

The With a little

Another object of our attention, was the supply of water in and around the city. At the present day, Jerusalem is supplied almost wholly with rain-water, preserved in cisterns cut in the solid rock on which the houses stand. Almost every house has one or more cisterns : that in which we resided, had no less than four very large ones. ancient city was probably supplied in the same manner. attention there can never be any want of water within the walls. The aqueduct which comes from Solomon's pools beyond Bethlehem, brings water only to the mosque of Omar. Outside of the city, besides the ancient reservoirs, there are wells in various places, some with water and some without. The brook Kidron in the valley of Jehosaphat, flows only when the rain-water descends into it from the adjacent hills. Fountains of running water exist only in this valley; and of these there are three, viz.-The fountain of the Virgin, or of Siloam, just south of the site of the temple; the pool of Siloam, just within the entrance of the Tyropoeum; and the well of Nehemiah, or of Job, opposite the entrance of the vale of Hinnom. This last is a deep well of living water, which in the rainy season overflows; it is beyond doubt the EnRogel of Scripture. The pool of Siloam is wholly artificial, and receives its waters from the fountain of the Virgin, through a subterraneous channel cut through the solid rock. We crawled through this channel and measured it. From this pool the water flows down still a steep descent, and is lost among gardens. The fountain of the Virgin is also evidently an artificial excavation in the rock; but whence the water is derived is a mystery. It has a sweetish and slightly brackish

taste; and flows irregularly, or only at irregular intervals. We e were witnesses of this irregular flow; and were told by the women who came for water, that sometimes during summer it ceases to flow for several weeks, when on a sudden the water comes gushing out again in abundance.

Ancient writers have spoken of a fountain of living water as existing under the temple; though their assertions have in general obtained little credit. Soon after our arrival in Jerusalem, we were told of a similar fountain under the present mosque of Omar; the waters of which were used to supply a Turkish bath, in the vicinity of the mosque. We went to the bath, and found two men drawing water from a deep well. They told us, that the water flows into the well from a passage cut in the rock and leading under the mosque, where is a chamber and a living fountain. In summer, when the water is so low as not to flow out into the well, they go down and bring it out by hand. The taste of the water, is precisely similar to that of the fountain in the valley below. We made all our preparations to descend into the well, and examine the fountain; but were hindered at the time; and were unable afterwards to resume the investigation. Is, perhaps, the water of this fountain brought down by a subterraneous channel from some higher point? Is there a connexion between this fountain under the mosque, and that in the valley below; and is the irregular flow of the latter in some way dependent on this circumstance? These questions may, not improbably, at some future time, be answered in the affirmative.

When we arrived at Jerusalem, war was raging between the Druses, and the forces of the Pasha. The city was full of rumours; no one knew where Ibrahim Pasha was; and it was said, his troops had been beaten. In this state of things the unquiet spirits of the land began to rouse themselves; several murders and robberies were committed on pilgrims and travelling merchants; and for a time it was doubtful, whether we should be able to travel at all in the country without an armed guard. But soon the certain news arrived, that Ibrahim was at Damascus, and had defeated the Druses. After this, all was again still; and we travelled through the length and breadth of the land, without fear or accident,-indeed with the same feeling of security as in England or Germany.

As if we were to have a specimen of all the evils of the oriental world, in a few days after our arrival in the Holy City, the plague broke out, at first doubtfully, then decidedly, though mildly. Other travellers left the city immediately; and some who were on their way thither, turned back. We continued our investigations without interruption; and a kind providence preserved us from the danger. On the 19th of May the city was shut up, and none permitted to go out; we had left it two days before, on a long excursion.

Indeed, during the whole journey, although surrounded by war, pestilence, and quarantines, we were enabled to pass through them all without harm or hindrance,—without being detained from these causes even for an hour.

[To be continued.]